Popular passages

Page 357 - Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho...

Page 359 - How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream. With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream ! To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height...

Page 357 - Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho...

Page 359 - Eating the Lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To lend our hearts and spirits wholly To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; To muse and brood and live again in memory, With those old faces of our infancy Heap'd over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

Page 360 - I have oft heard My mother Circe with the Sirens three, Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades Culling their potent herbs, and baleful drugs ; Who as they sung would take the prisoned soul And lap it in Elysium ; Scylla wept, And chid her barking waves into attention ; And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.

Page 361 - I was cut off from hope in that sad place, Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears; My father held his hand upon his face; I blinded with my tears, " Still strove to speak : my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, Waiting to see me die.

Page 108 - In black ship on the azure fields astray, But heard our sweet voice ere he sailed away, And in his joy passed on with ampler mind. We know what labours were in ancient day Wrought in wide Troia, as the gods assigned; We know from land to land all toils of all mankind?

Page 360 - A Dream of Fair Women. His eyes fell on these lines, and he read them aloud to judge better of their effect :"At length I saw a lady within call. Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.

Page 361 - Say from what city, from what regions tossed, And what inhabitants those regions boast? So shalt thou quickly reach the realm assigned, In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind; No helm secures their course, no pilot guides; Like man intelligently they plough the tides, Conscious of every coast and every bay That lies beneath the sun's all-seeing ray.